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WHY do the Indians do so
poorly in any international sporting team event or
individual? And why will we almost certainly win fewer
medals than Soviet Union and East Germany and United
States in the Olympics? East Germany, the coach of a
national team has four years' training in exercise
biomechanics, sports psychology sports organization and
two years specialized training in his or her particular
field. In India, many coaches are former players /athletes
with little knowledge or training in their profession.
Except Indian cricket has been given all the gold but
sadly you can't change anything at that level, one has to
start from the grassroots for the players to become an
athlete. Instead, most sportsmen in India just show up at
local park (which is also very rare) and learn through
irksome trial, error and pain -- courtesy of broken bones
and large chunks of missing skin. The United States has
28,159 racers affiliated with clubs and five experienced
national team coaches. The Soviet Union has an estimated
350,000 organized racers and 2,500 well-trained coaches at
all levels. How can we catch up? When I visited Dublin ,
Ireland , last year to attend trainers and coaches seminar
conducted by Charles Poliquin world famous strength coach
who works with Canadian
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Olympic team . Johnny Bowden , top
celebrity nutrionist and Dr. Ken world class phsio. The
audience includes the Irish rugby team coach , Australian
rules football coach and many stars from different
countries were present , It was a gathering of 400 of the
best, brightest and most motivated fitness professionals
in the world , but unfortunately I was the only Asian ever
attended Charles seminar that's what I have been told and
I got a round of applause for that .I saw that the coaches
-- are strikingly different from the ones I remember from
high school. And so are their practices. There is no
milling around waiting to get started. Practice includes
organized drills for building specific skills useful to
any athlete, drills that have a solid foundation in sports
science. For example, athletes warm up their throwing arms
with a specialized series of stretching and strengthening
exercises. And they make their early throws from a sitting
position so that big trunk and leg muscles can't help out
the shoulder muscles. India may have the best athletes in
the world, but few get a fair shot at proving it. They
don't learn the basic nuts and bolts of how to train and
compete as effectively as they can. The knowledge they
need comes out of today's scientific revolutions in
physiology, nutrition and psychology. While American
/Canadians /Eastern European researchers lead the world in
such work, it has to be delivered by coaches who bother to
learn the facts and use them with their athletes. Until
then, dedicated young Indians will continue to lose
contests they could win. Their coaches/trainers are
letting them down.
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